As mentioned in another article, we recently upgraded our "workhorse" IBM mainframe system, to better accomodate the needs of the university. Due to foresightful planning when this system was purchased (in 2006), there was no direct cost to upgrade the hardware.

However, much mainframe software is licensed on the basis of the capacity of the machine; consequently some of our software vendors require us to pay increased license fees to use their software on our upgraded system. CNS negotiated agressively to hold these increases down, and was able to obtain very favorable prices, compared to the vendors' standard fees. However, there were still some increases which we were unable to avoid.

In order to hold our costs down, and prevent a situation where we would have to pass price increases along to our customers, CNS elected to review our mainframe software, and find items which could be discontinued, with minimal impact on our customers.

The products selected for removal (at the end of the current contract year, 7/31/2009) are:

We ask that programmers begin now to review their CNS applications, and determine whether this is likely to result in any significant impact on their production processes.

The CNS z/OS system staff are in the process of reviewing the use of those products by our users, and formulating recommendations for how users may adjust their programs and processes to successfully migrate away from use of these products. Their findings and recommendations will be published in future CNS News and /Update articles.

If you have any specific questions, please contact John Bevis by e-mail or at 352.392.2061.

We welcome your comments and suggestions on this and all CNS documentation. Please send your comments to: